In this twelfth article, we’re pleased to introduce Keith Page, a British author with a substantial body of work, often as an illustrator and sometimes as creator of both text and art.
What’s unique for this artist about Dan Dare is that Keith Page had the opportunity to create stories about our hero at two different points in his life, about ten years apart.
The article you’re about to read includes an interview, enriched by numerous images—including some stages of production for a cover and a page for the “Commando” series — and concludes with a recent Dan Dare-themed illustration.
Happy reading, everyone, and we’ll see you again in seven days.
Mario Benenati and Daniele Tomasi, editors of the DAN DARE SPECIAL PROJECT
Note: this Special Project, like all others on this digital magazine, is no-profit and just for informative purposes, as the images used which are © of the rights holders.
The Italian association FUMETTOMANIA FACTORY – APS, which has been operating nationwide since 1991—while never neglecting the activities carried out within its headquarters in Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto (Messina, Sicily)—has the aim of promoting, disseminating, and enhancing themes related to the language of comics.
Fumettomania’s mission is to attract young people of all ages by promoting projects dedicated to them, addressing current and engaging topics, using comics, which emerge as an autonomous art form that embodies the linguistic code of literature (words), its modes of consumption, but also the sequentiality of cinema and the figurative focus of traditional visual arts.
The Association’s commitment—35 years after its foundation (on May 14, 2026)—is to continue spreading comics culture and to continue its cultural and social projects in the area with workshops for young enthusiasts and schools, solo and group exhibitions dedicated to comics, illustration, and related fields, comic book presentations, and meetings with authors.
KEITH PAGE, TWO TIMES DAN DARE
– by Daniele Tomasi
Keith Page, a London-based artist with a wide variety of themes and settings in his works, has twice been author of stories with Dan Dare, first in the 1990s as an artist, and then several years later as both a writer and illustrator.
He kindly granted us an interesting interview and numerous accompanying images:
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Daniele Tomasi: Did you attend a school or take courses to learn how to draw comics, or are you self-taught?
Keith Page: I had no formal art training.
DT: What tools and materials do you use to draw comics?
KP: Pencil, black waterproof ink, gouache paint, coloured inks.
DT: Which artists have influenced you the most?
KP: I would say my original inspiration to draw comics was the work of Frank Hampson, which was coming to an end but I managed to obtain a full set of ‘Eagle‘ 1950-60 together with all the Eagle Annuals.
I did see some US comics but considered them to be badly drawn and cheaply produced.
I also liked Hergé‘s Tintin and later the work of Jacques Tardi and Hugo Pratt.
DT: Do you prefer to work on texts written by others or on stories written by you?
KP: I prefer to write my own stories unless I feel that a writer can develop a theme in unexpected ways.
DT: Was it difficult to become a professional?
KP: I started touring the editors who were mainly in central London. This took some time, but I was eventually taken on by Pat Kelleher of the Temple Art Agency. This process took some time and required persistence.
DT: Yours is a long career; you’ve worked on numerous series, different characters, and a variety of themes, from commedy to adventure, from sports to science fiction. To cite them in a brief summary I use the text published in https://ukcomics.fandom.com/wiki/Keith_Page:
Keith Page is an artist from London.
His earliest work was published in Denis Gifford's Ally Sloper in 1976.
He got representation from the Temple Art Agency and got work on 2000 AD annuals, Starblazer, TV Comic ("Tales of the Gold Monkey") and the Supergran Annual in the late 1970s and early 80s.
He went on to draw for titles like Revolver ("Martello 112", which he wrote and drew), Ring Raiders, MASK, Wildcat and Supernaturals, before following Keith Watson on "Dan Dare" in Eagle.
In 1992 he started work on Thunderbirds the Comic for Alan Fennell (he also drew Thunderbirds in the Sunday Times), Stingray the Comic and Joe 90.
He has also drawn for Football Picture Story Monthly, Bunty, The Beano (including "Christmas Carole") and The Dandy.
Since 1996 he has been a regular artist on Commando, drawing over 150 issues.
He writes and draws "Rocket Pilot", featuring Dan Dare's boss Sir Hubert Guest in his younger days, for Spaceship Away, and has collaborated with writer Stephen Walsh on a series of comics featuring Charlotte Corday, including “London Calling”, published in October 2010 by Timebomb Comics, and “The Iron Moon”, published in spring 2011 by Print Media.
Would you tell us something about some of the various series mentioned?
KP: Sure.
THUNDERBIRDS / STINGRAY was related, of course, to the popular TV series. I received a lot of reference material from Alan Fennell who was a TV scriptwriter as well as a comics editor. I also drew related newspaper strips for the Sunday Times;
For COMMANDO COMICS, I drew around 250 issues of these, each 63 b/w pages plus colour covers. These covered a wide variety of historical periods. I have a large collection of military books;
CHARLOTTE CORDAY is my own character, originally inspired by a 1940’s novel ‘Fans Noir‘ by Jacques Lioinet. Later screenwriter Stephen Walsh provided some more stories which were published by Timebomb Comics: ‘London Calling‘; ‘Squadron of the Screaming Damned‘; ‘Paint it Black‘ (about the 1950’s Scotland Yard Vampire Squad). Also there was a related steampunk book, ‘The Iron Moon‘. A number of Charlotte stories remain as yet unpublished.
DT: The brief biography of ukcomics.fandom ends in 2011, let’s try to update it: what have you worked on subsequently, up until today?
KP: Various books.
THE CASEBOOK of BRYANT AND MAY is based on a popular series of detective novels about these eccentric London-based characters. I collaborated with the original author, the late Christopher Fowler (also a comics enthusiast). The settings for the story were taken from my own photographs for accuracy;
TONY HANCOCK, THE LAD HIMSELF is another idea of mine, developed with Stephen Walsh into a compact 300-page graphic novel. Nominated for an award;
NIGHTMARE AT NORTHANGER ABBEY is a story inspired by the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen, the satirical gothic works of Thomas Love Peacock and the 1935 film ‘Bride of Frankenstein‘. Currently on sale at Gosh Comics, Soho, London;
STRAWNACK, THE DEVIL OF ROMNEY MARSH is inspired by the ‘Doctor Syn‘ stories of Russell Thorndike but updated with a touch of Steampunk. On sale on Amazon.
DT: Are there any characters or settings you haven’t worked on that you’d like to try?
KP: The novels of Patrick O’Brian and Georges Simenon.
DT: Can you tell us a little more about the stories you’ve recently published and those currently in progress?
KP: Here we go.
SERK – a fantasy inspired by artist/writer Mervyn Peake‘s time in the Channel island of Sark;
MARTIAN MAJIC – a sequel to the 1959 TV series by Nigel Kneale ‘Quatermass and the Pit‘;
SPACE RACE 1951 – a story of multi-millionaires competing to send the first spaceship to the Moon in an alternative 1951;
SING CUCKOO – a fantasy written by Stephen Walsh about a fictional search by Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee for some lost film cans of ‘The Wicker Man‘. 250 pages, as yet unpublished although favourably received by the Peter Cushing Society.
The following are various continental projects which did not proceed, at the moment:
BELWETHER AND MAHAFY – a WW2 spy story set in Ireland, written by Stephen Walsh;
THE CHATELET APPRENTICE – set in France in the 1760’s;
MURDER ON THE EIFFEL TOWER – set in Paris around 1900, is written by two sisters, Parisian friends of ours, which prefer to use the pen name ‘Claude Izner‘;
THE FACELESS KILLERS, the first Wallander story by Henning Mankell.
DT: You’ve worked on stories about Dan Dare and his world on two occasions. Tell us about the differences in your approach and what it was like working on those stories.
KP: About my first work on Dan Dare in 1980s, I was asked to work on the earlier stories and tried to incorporate as much as possible from the original. I met Frank Hampson a couple of times and also Keith Watson who was working on the strip at the same time I was. Unfortunately, the editorial team decided to ‘update’ the stories, which in my opinion did not work. Also, the scriptwriters did not have a feel for the original.
About the Dan Dare stories in Spaceship Away, this was an opportunity to put things right as I saw it. “Rocket Pilot” was a Dan Dare prequel, as accurate as I could possibly make it.
DT: What else do you like besides making comics?
KP: Bristol Cars.
Thanks a lot to Keith Page for his answers, and for kindly providing us with an unpublished illustration of Dan Dare.
The following is a list of Keith Page’s blogs, where you can find a lot of his artwork:
- Keith Page UK Comics Artist – https://keithpageukcomicsartist.blogspot.com/
- Paint it Black – https://paraffinjack.blogspot.com/
- Charlotte Corday – https://royalspacenavy.blogspot.com/
- Witchcraft Street – https://dennisthedonkey.blogspot.com/
All images © right holders
Dan Dare © Dan Dare Corporation – https://www.dandare.com/media
“The Dan Dare Corporation owns the global rights including Film, Television, Radio, Social Media, Publishing and Merchandising to the Eagle Comic and associated strips including Dan Dare – Pilot of the Future.”
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NOTE:
To access the index and links to all the articles in the SPECIAL PROJECT DAN DARE, visit this page with the introductory article:
Italian version: https://www.fumettomaniafactory.net/speciale-dan-dare-pilota-del-futuro/
English version: https://www.fumettomaniafactory.net/fumettomania-presents-dan-dare-pilot-of-the-future/
EXTRA
BIOGRAPHY (of the coordinator, of the special)
DANIELE TOMASI is a multifaceted creative in the field of ComicArt, acting as artist, letterer, colorist, editor.
With the DTE brand, “the smallest publishing house in the world”, he edited and published three volumes of the “DebbieDillinger” series (where he is even the artist), the first number of “TetroTeatro” magazine (author of texts and drawings), the digital magazine “Continua…” (a free-distribution magazine with comics of various genres and authors, seven issues so far) and three issues of the magazine “Gli Archivi del Fumetto” (new issues and large-format volumes are planned).
He has created comics and illustrations for various Italian publishers (Tunuè, ProGlo, ComixCommunity, UndergroundPress, BotteroEdizioni, Pegasus/Comicus, Antani, Apache, AltaFedeltà).
He has worked as graphic designer for Italian publishers ProGloEdizioni, GreencomService, Shockdom, Palabanda Edizioni and Chimbe.
He has made lettering for Black Velvet and RW Edizioni.
He organizes courses about the Language of Comics.
In Internet you can see some of his artworks on the website danieletomasi.altervista.org , see other works and read some of his thoughts and opinions on the blog danieletomasi.blogspot.com , read for free some of the DTE publications in issuu.com/dteditore, read for free a fake storyboard of the “Spider-man” movie by James Cameron downloading the pdf (screen or print resolution) from the site spidercameron.altervista.org , write to him at the e-mails danieletomasi@gmail.com and dteditore@gmail.com
